


and in the snow

by MathildaHilda



Series: until the end of infinity [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, I don't even know how to tag this thing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), all the named characters are more or less mentioned, post THAT scene in Avengers: Infinity War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: It snows in the world today.





	and in the snow

**Author's Note:**

> Title from; Almost Faded by Message To Bears

It snows in the world today.

It snows in the parks and it snows in the streets; it snows across the rooftops and it snows against the windows. It snows and it snows, and it snows.

It snows, and it doesn’t melt.

It doesn’t melt against the fires or the tarmac of the airports, it doesn’t dissipate against the calm waves of the ocean or the lakes or the rivers; it doesn’t go away.

 

(It snows, and it is what stays behind.)

 

Because it snows in the hospitals and the churches, and it snows in the schools and in the houses and in the tents.

It snows. And it stays.

 

The buses are empty of everything but dust and little Timothy Hammond, twenty lonely backpacks and one in red and gold clutched between trembling hands. A phone is ringing, and then twenty more.

But no one calls Timothy Hammond.

 

(Melinda Hammond opens the porch door to call for the furry ball promised to her son for his birthday. The little furry ball takes three steps, Melinda Hammond takes two.

Joseph Hammond taps the pen against the notepad, and decides to close the open tabs on the screen. He moves to go home.

It’s his son’s birthday, after all.

But no one calls Timothy Hammond.)

 

_(It snows,)_

 

Reed Richards calls a meeting the moment the donut disappears into space and they all set to work.

Johnny Storm comms his sister the moment he lands in Central Park, avoids burning the trees, and gets nothing but static in reply. He comms Reed and Ben and calls a meeting back home. He doesn’t have time to listen to the static that follows his demand.

But there’s dust on the floor, strewn around as if though in haste, and there’s a soft cloud of dark particles hovering by the screens, there to simply state;  _‘here i’ve been. here i’m not’._

Evidence of existence; contradictions of life.

Two chairs are empty, and the world is chaos.

 

 

Sylvia Mortimer looks out the window when the first helicopter falls through the sky.

She has long since gotten used to superheroes saving the day, and is almost prepared to see Iron Man tear through the sky or maybe Thor pull the helicopter by the tail and dump it where it can’t hurt anyone.

But she looks out the window when the helicopter falls through the sky and she looks through the window to see it set fire to fragile matchstick furniture and flammable fabrics. She looks, and she sees the devastation that follows when Tony Stark left for space.

Sylvia Mortimer has gotten used to superheroes. Enough so, that she’s still waiting when the second helicopter topples into her building from the other side.

 

The little girl falls apart in her hands. Trickles like sand between slitted fingers and they both grapple for the other in desperate attempts of comfort and reassurance. The colors are gray and flaked and it’s been a long time since she has felt some resemblance of fear.

She’s not afraid. But the girl is. And that is good enough for it to bleed into her as well.

 _‘I’m here. I’m not going away.’_ It’s a desperate and almost pleading promise when a voice is not enough, but one does go and the other stays behind, and Carol is left with a message of distress in eyes and voice and machine.

She’s left with the afterimage of disaster, all in the faces of people turned to snow.

 

_(And it snows,)_

 

Lieutenant Stacy is patchy through the radio, and Officers Jones and Quirrell can’t hear anything over the chaos of the outdoors. Parked as they are by the opening of an alley, the partnering duo can neither see nor hear what happens on the other side until it happens on their side as well.

They do, however, see the ice cream truck that barrels across the street, tearing a fire hydrant from the ground and spewing water across the street. Jones signals the lights, Quirrell picks up the radio.

Quirrell hears the panic on the other end, and Jones sees the car far too late.

 

_(And it snows,)_

 

May Parker goes home alone, and doesn’t go to sleep.

May Parker goes home and stares at the tv until the power cuts out and someone screams further down the corridor, and she picks up the phone to call Peter, but she saw the news.

Peter isn’t here, and if he had been, then he would be  _here._

Peter isn’t here, and neither is Tony Stark.

So, she calls everyone she knows; calls every colleague, calls the Delmars’, calls Happy Hogan. She calls and she calls, and she calls until the line cuts off and she’s left in the dark with the horrid thoughts of Ben who’s already gone and Peter.

Peter, who might be gone too. Gone, in a flurry of snowflakes.

 

 

_(And it snows.)_

 

Titan is quiet and empty and lonely.

It’s cold, and the air has always been filled with some level of dust; filled with some level of the death Thanos wrecked on his own people.

Tony Stark knew Peter was okay enough at dancing; maybe not good enough to participate in Dancing with the Stars, but good enough to get through Prom without stepping on his date’s toes.

Tony Stark knew, and yet here he was; with ashen snow dancing around his head and before his eyes, blending with whatever remained of what Titan had once been, and turning into something else.

 _‘Cease to exist,’_ hadn’t that been what had been said? And yet, they’re all still here.

 

Wakanda has snow. Every part of the world has snow at some point and sometimes in odd amounts.

It doesn’t matter where you go, someone will always find some kind of snow.

Just not this kind.

It doesn’t burn and it doesn’t numb in other ways than that it numbs your mind and your heart and leaves nothing but an imprint behind. An imprint of what once was and perhaps never will be again.

It snows, and it darkens the shoulders of surviving men and women and children and stings their eyes when they look too closely and wish dream into reality. It stings not unlike bees when the message behind them is clearer than any other day before the snow and ash takes the sky as its own;  _‘here you go. this is yours now. do with it what you will. i saved you.’_

A message maybe not everyone knows, but a message everyone understands, yet not wholly agree on.

How do you move on, when those you need to do so are far away and far underground and without any trace of existence in anything but photographs and memories?

How do you move on, when you lose the one thing that made them real?

 

It snows in the world tomorrow. And it snows the day after that.  
  
It snows in the world today, snows where it shouldn't and blends where it shouldn't.  
  
The snow isn't white. The snow isn't cold.

 

It isn’t snow at all.

 

(It snows in the world today, and if you could choose; who would you spare?)


End file.
